prince

He's kinda sloppy as a drummer when he tries to get fancy. I saw him in a club once and for some reason he played bass on "Kiss," strumming an awesomely muddy approximation of the chords.

He prob doesn't play with a click track.

I like him as a drummer and wish he played more. I love him on parade, tambourine, soft and wet. Hes no technician but he can def come up with funky, unusual stuff.

How do y'all rate Prince as a drummer? To me it's the instrument on which he's least interesting? Not bad, just rote.

Least interesting = least interested, probably. His favouring the Linn probably speaks to his relative lack of interest in drums as an instrument or an element of composition / improvisation. He could play real drums well enough to lay down a track & then do all the stuff that actually engaged him over the top, and he learnt one machine well enough to do the same. Done, move on.

Similarly, he lets Sheila thrive when she's doing fun percussion stuff that surprises him above the regular beat, which he doesn't care about?

I think he's actually an awesome, totally original drum machine programmer. Like Dorothy Parker, or that Time song I referenced, 777-9311?Just nuts.

There are all these pop stars that play drums like they really know how, like Bieber or Bruno Mars or the guy from Panic at the Disco. But Prince plays like a guy who plays well for someone who lists drums last on their resume.

iirc according to susan rogers he did not play with a click track, correct

yeah he's great on the Linn obv! but he stuck to that one machine - it didn't spark interest in picking up newer drum machines and learning what he could do with them

(never owned anything post-80s, but my impression is that NPG onward is predominantly live drums, and iirc Batman sounds likely programmed on computer or hardware sampler, rather than a current drum machine?)

Wait, none of you have seen or heard him on the sott tour playing drums on beautiful night? Not saying goes mitch Mitchell or anything but hes pretty famn good.

*not saying hes

(I'm assuming you all like mitch Mitchell as much as me)
On this subject, is it me or is Morris day a really leaden drummer? Going in ckoreen bacon skin and the alt version of international lover

the drums on “lady cab driver” sound live and are pretty sick

i think the proper narrative to understanding prince is seeing people argue about him online

/sincere post

Yes, LCD is a good call

I actually don't know if sheila e being a major crush for me as a teenager is making me overrate her as a drummer but I'm going to say no

Batman is largely done using preset sounds on the Roland D-50 iirc which was a very popular kinda hybrid sampler-synth

👍🎹🥁

I wish he did more songs like alphabet street actually. Prince in ultra sparse mode is usually incredible.

yeah he's great on the Linn obv! but he stuck to that one machine

Although, by 1987 and Sign o' the Times he was often using his Fairlight to program his backbeats. Certainly on the title track.

Shame he never found a new machine after the 80s ended.

Lots of Fairlight on Parade and SOTT.

a lot of people think of "slow love" as the worst song on here but from an arrangement perspective it's one of the best. so many gorgeous things happening at once by the end. i didn't get a chance to talk about the remaster (which is necessary and valuable just because it replaces the old digital version, which had remastered singles sitting alongside unremastered album tracks, disjointed and horrible, the digital music revolution wasn't worth it, etc.) but it in particular benefits from the raised detail

Slow love is wondrous. So lovely and detailed. Even his vocal sounding a boy detached seems to make it better.

Yeah it’s the zenith of that dreamy orchestral style he was shooting for on Parade

Yep, Slow Love is pure chills-down-the-spine soul. One of the best songs on the album

'Yeah it’s the zenith of that dreamy orchestral style he was shooting for on Parade'

check out the 86 version of old friends for sale.
unbelievable that he never released it (only the weaker, 90s re-recording made it out)

a lot of the outtakes have really generic late 80s production/sounds that are quite annoying i find. cocoa boys has a cool u got the look type of synth running through it, but otherwise sounds a bit sterile. and that version of i need a man, is just monotonous, though i guess it has the novelty of hearing prince appearing to sing to another man. i hate soul psychodelicide, its the kind of thing thats cool live, but on record, gets repetitive. id rather they put other outtakes on here instead. most of prince's instrumentals kinda suck (though and that says what isnt bad).

still, just having all my dreams here, is almost worth the price of the whole thing.

prefer an allusion to soul psychedelicide in "Joy in Repetition."

Cocoa boys is like a less good battle of the bands type of joy in repetition narrative song. I found myself giving zero fucks about the story in it

One thing about several of these songs is they have a lot more extended sections compared to anything he released after 1999. Sometimes, I don't really need all that, though I so love the 12" version of wonderful day (a rare prince song where the snares aren't all on the bloody 2 and 4 for once) and I actually think one of the best things on here is the shep remix of strange relationship, to my surprise. He really made it a bit special.

The edit of crystal ball really was a good idea too. Well done prince. Makes the song much more focused and teasing rather than 'where TFare they going with this' as with the long version

Yeah, I noticed most of the outtakes, as thrilling as they are, went on a minutes more than necessary at least (e.g. " “Adonis and Bathsheba" "Walkin' in Glory").

Yeah, prince usually kept things to the point, or in my view, was better when doing that (by and large), so many of these songs, even all my dreams I hate to say, could use an edit. Some of the extended sections are either unnecessary or just a bit indulgent. Fun for the band I'm sure, but that's it. I think I've overdosed on prince with this set. Starting to get irritated with prince-isms. Need to escape the oppressive all engulfing nature of the super deluxe edition bulky mass

Fantastic review, Brad.

Lovesexy was my first Prince LP, and many days it remains my favourite.

each of the outtakes should be 20 minutes long imo

i vote 60 mins.

Drums aren't Prince's strongest instrument obv, but he's great as a drummer with no technique but his immense sense of groove & composition. Lady Cab Driver is my fav, playing over the drum machine. I remember an old interview with him in Modern Drummer where he talked about starting tracks with the drum machine and then overdubbing live percussion until it felt good & human.

Also there's nothing wrong with that Sheila E solo imo, although arena drum solos are dumb anyway and it's mostly the sound that makes it sound a little rough (it's pretty hilarious honestly, the very tight/thin drum sound + the sound engineer turning the gated reverb on and off).

I wish he did more songs like alphabet street actually. Prince in ultra sparse mode is usually incredible

The spine of the song - vocals, rhythm guitar, drum machine - is sparse enough, but this is where he really starts to go overboard in layering stuff on top and imo ends up busier than anything on SOTT bar maybe “Play In The Sunshine”

One of the attractions of SOTT is hearing the restraint and his confidence in the bones of the material; Lovesexy has its merits imo but it’s certainly nothing to do with that

Alphabet st only gets busy in its second part. The first part (the single version) is perfectly minimal. But yeah prince was really good at stripping out superfluous parts. Maybe that's a James brown trick he applied to songs that had nothing to do with jb.

discovered an old cd single by pj harvey and josh homme which has a cover of 'it' on there. musically its great, a sort of sludgy stomp, but when josh homme starts singing, sounding devoid of any actual sexual impulse, and like he is just bored being there, you realise just how much of princes music is really all about his voice, his persona, etc. plenty of his songs just dont work in other artists hands for that reason (as well as the fact they just deliver poor vocals).

Another thing about Prince songs, which becomes really clear when my brass band has thought about doing instrumental arrangements, is how many of them A) have a melody that's more or less one note, at least in the verses, and B) have the exact same melody for the verse and chorus, just different lyrics.

Nothing wrong with that, it's just very depending on lyrics and delivery. It's also very different to, say, MJ's music, which works perfectly for horns because every section is distinct and identifiable regardless of lyrics.

thats interesting. i was actually going to add to my last post that sometimes i wonder if princes songs arent musically all that comple/interesting from a compositional point (i can only play drums half-decently though so i dont know much about playing them on other instruments), just because most covers of his music really suck, and its HIM that makes them so good as recordings.

A) have a melody that's more or less one note, at least in the verses, and B) have the exact same melody for the verse and chorus, just different lyrics.

immediately thought of "i wanna be your lover" here, but yeah a lot of his songs do this, which isn't a problem in his hands because he was a master of melodic rhythm and phrasing.

Yeah IWBYL was my main candidate (and I'd say that's not a super representative Prince song, as great as it is). There are others of course, but it's surprising how many of them don't work as instrumentals, especially among the hits.

I Would Die 4 U is another one that immediately comes to mind.

to my ears, the verses of i would die 4 u and the chorus do not sound alike?

They don't, although the verse is a classic one-note Prince verse. Reductively the vocal lines are very blocky, square phrases, but when all the elements come together it's amazing.

the verses are pretty much the same note with occasional variations (and the added harmony in the 2nd verse). there is more variation in the chorus but it ultimately comes back to the same note, especially on emphasized “YOU”, making it the focal point again (since the verses are about him, not “you”) to an amazing effect.

I missed out didn’t I
Deluxe CD edition seems pretty scarce